The turn from peacebuilding to stabilisation: Colombia after the 2018 presidential election

Abstract

Although stabilisation has been widely debated by the recent literature, there has been relatively little discussion about how the governments of countries affected by armed violence have themselves engaged with the concept. This article looks at Colombia where, since the election of president Iván Duque in 2018, the government has increasingly emphasised stabilisation. We argue that stabilisation is for the Duque administration a discursive device that allows them to navigate the contradiction between their critical position towards the peace process and the necessity to fulfil internal and international obligations. We also argue that, in spite of its apparent novelty, the concept of stabilisation has long roots in Colombia, going back to the policies of consolidation developed under the presidencies of Álvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos. The analysis of the antecedents of consolidation raises doubts about the appropriateness of Duque’s stabilisation for tackling Colombia’s post-conflict challenges. The case of Colombia highlights the risk that stabilisation might displace more transformative approaches to peacebuilding and the continuity between contemporary stabilisation and previous interventions.

Keywords:

• Colombia
• stabilisation
• peacebuilding
• counter-insurgency
• statebuilding
• post-conflict
• politics

Acknowledgements

This article is part of the ESRC-Colciencias-funded project ‘Territorial planning for peace and state-building in the Alto Cauca region of Colombia’. We thank Katherine Gough and Irene Vélez-Torres for their leadership of the project and their support of our research. We also extend our gratitude to our partner research team at Universidad del Valle, who shared with us their invaluable knowledge of the Alto Cauca region, in particular James Iván Larrea and Bladimir Bueno. We also thank Angelika Rettberg and Lina Malagón-Brett, who shared with us contacts and insights useful for our fieldwork in Bogotá. Jorge Delgado and Alejandra Ortiz-Ajala read earlier versions of this paper and provided comments and suggestions. Sofia Pérez helped with interview transcriptions and Daniel Faulkner assisted with proofreading. Finally, we thank all the interviewees who kindly shared their views with us, and the anonymous referees of Third World Quarterly, who helped us to improve the article with their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) UK and Colciencias (Colombia) [under grant number ES/R010749/1].

ORCID

Giulia Piccolino: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6817-6542.

Krisna Ruette-Orihuela: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2562-9249.

Notes

1 For the purpose of this article, we reference the English translation of the Colombian peace agreement published by the Colombian government.

2 The Colombian presidency published an English version of the document, titled in Spanish Paz con Legalidad. We are quoting here this official English translation. Quotes from other Colombian government documents have been translated from Spanish by the authors of this article.

3 Interview with top government advisor, Bogotá, 28 August 2019.

4 Interview with top government advisor, Bogotá, 28 August 2019.

5 Interview with civil servant, Bogotá, 22 August 2019; Interview with civil servant, 23 August 2019, Bogotá; Interview with civil servant, online, 5 February 2021.

6 Interview with civil servant, Bogotá, 22 August 2019.

7 Interview with civil servant, 23 August 2019, Bogotá.

8 Interview with policy researchers, Bogotá, 26 July 2019.

9 Interview with policy researcher, Bogotá, 29 August 2019.

10 Interview with former civil servant, Bogotá, 26 August 2019.

11 Interview with former civil servant, Bogotá, 26 August 2019.

12 Interview with policy advisor at Western embassy in Bogotá, online, 8 January 2021.

13 Interview with policy advisor at Western embassy in Bogotá, online, 8 January 2021.

14 Interview with policy advisor at Western embassy in Bogotá, online, 8 January 2021.

15 Interview with Álvaro Balcázar Vanegas, 26 August 2019, Bogotá; Interview with former civil servant, 26 August 2019, Bogotá; Interview with former civil servant, 26 August 2019, Bogotá; Interview with policy researchers, Bogotá, 26 July 2019.

16 Interview with policy advisor at Western embassy in Bogotá, online, 8 January 2021.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giulia Piccolino

Giulia Piccolino is Senior Lecturer in politics and international relations at Loughborough University. She is currently involved in the ESRC-funded project ‘Territorial Planning for Peace and State-Building in the Alto Cauca region of Colombia’ and in a project on the consequences of rebel governance in Côte d’Ivoire. She is also interested in exploring non-liberal forms of conflict management and post-conflict reconstruction. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, including African Affairs, Development and Change, Third World Quarterly and Democratization.

Krisna Ruette-Orihuela

Krisna Ruette-Orihuela is Lecturer in social justice at University College Dublin (UCD). Before joining UCD, she was Postdoctoral Research Associate in geography and environment at Loughborough University in the research project ‘Territorial Planning for Peace and State-Building in the Alto Cauca region of Colombia’. She is currently interested in exploring how territorial peace instruments are negotiated and contested by different ethno-racial groups and political actors. Her research has focussed on the intersections of anti-racism, social movements, social justice, state multiculturalism and peacebuilding.